So you say the first day of winter is December 21st? Details, details... We declare it to be winter as soon as the Thanksgiving leftovers have been eaten. Maybe even before.
There may not be snow on the ground here in North Carolina yet, but that's nothing a few art supplies and a vivid imagination can't fix. We use our favorite watercolor + salt technique to create snowstorms on paper, build snowmen, and provide the proper atmosphere for our wintry art.
For our most recent winter paintings, we started by drawing with
oil pastels on
watercolor paper
. Maia drew a snowman.
Daphne drew an abstract scene using almost every color in the box. And I drew a winter scene with a tree.
Once our drawings were finished, we painted over them with
liquid watercolors for a watercolor resist and sprinkled coarse kosher salt over the wet paint as we went.
Daphne enjoyed the painting part, but mostly skipped the salt step, except for a couple sprinkles just to join in the fun.
We let our paintings dry overnight, then rubbed off the salt. The salt absorbes the liquid from the watercolor paint, leaving white spots in the painting that look remarkably like snow.
For the most part, anyway.
Here's Maia's snowman painting. It rather looks like a snowman under water, rather than a snowman in a snowstorm, doesn't it? Perhaps this was a case of too much paint...
Here's my winter scene with tree and rocks during a gentle snowfall...
...and Daphne's joyous riot of color (with a few possible snowflakes visible on the right-hand side of the paper).
So tell me... Do you have snow on the ground yet? Or do you have to use your imagination as well?
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